Official Pu of the day

shogun89 wrote:Today is a lazy rainy day where I live, so when I got home after a day of school I decided to unwind with a session of a tea I had not tasted since last summer. I had only had this tea once before and since my brewing skills and sensitivity has developed greatly since, I was in for a treat. The tea is a 2003 CNNP 7581 250g. brick. I got it at puerhshop last august for around $9. Not only does the brick itself look quite nice, good leaves, and the compression is becoming looser, beginning to actually form layers in which the tea can be pried of from, from what I understand to be a good sign of age. The brick has a very strong smell to it, I had it wrapped in a cotton sheet and as soon as it came off, the room smelled great. I pried off about 6g. and used a 150 ml. yixing. The brew had a nice mellow sweet foresty aroma, very nice! Even the smell calmed me immediately. The tea is incredibly smooth, it passes thought the mouth and down the throat without any discomfort, very smooth and creamy. The tea immediately put me in a very relaxed state, I was able to close my eyes and was pretty much "out of it" for about 20 minutes. I am very happy with this tea and am glad to have almost the full brick left. This brick will be a special occasion only tea now. Tea like this lead me to believe that investing in quality young shous would be a very good idea. If I could get a tong of some menghai cake and age it for about 7 years and have it taste like this, I will be a happy guy. I will start to take shou's more seriously now.

"90's Tuo" got you down? The affordable every day puerh of your dreams is finally here.

Very good durability took me near the bottom of my large kettle. I got all the tea I cared to drink out of it.

Flavor not too earthy or wet, extremely smooth. Still classic aged puerh with a little sweetness -- this could be the one to turn on an aged sheng doubter. Perhaps Nada should throw 10g in every green sheng sampler as a gateway drug?

I would not describe the liquor as thick (7532 fans know what I mean), but it does coat your mouth and the taste goes on for a long time. This might be what is enticing me to pour pot after pot.

Cha Qi here is equally smooth. This is not a sharp cha qi that will cause discomfort or send you bouncing off the walls, nor is it likely to send you into a land of bliss. This is mellow and calming and good for clearing the mind. Perhaps it is just right.

Requires a little more leaf than some if you want to go for the long haul.
However, the taste is so smooth and sweet this should appeal to even non-puerh lovers.

This tea is a little lacking in qi and longevity for me, but it is made up for in other ways. The easy brewing and accessible flavors would lend itself well to sharing puerh with friends in a casual setting.

Hey what gives with all this old tea?I love old tea, and so do some of you out there. My two goals are as follows.

1) Point out to young puerh lovers where they can find more reasonable prices on old tea with accessible flavors. My posts will be teas at less than $100 a beeng for now. Generate an appreciation for old tea.

2) Now that we have set the price point we are willing to pay for aged tea, and defined some examples of what we think are delicious teas with good value, we look to our vendors to satisfy these desires. Those who can respond well will be rewarded by direct purchases from here, as well as lots of traffic generated by reviews on our several forums and blogs.

Neither of these things might happen, but I can hope. Cheers to the vendors who already get it, you can expect to see more of their puerhs here shortly.

brandon wrote:Cheers to the vendors who already get it, you can expect to see more of their puerhs here shortly.

Hip hip hooray! I like your project. My take on the Fang Cha Zhuan is pretty much the same as yours, but I hadn't committed it so well to words! I got it because ABx recommended it as an "average" or "typical" age puerh for the novice to learn on, but in fact I have also shared it with friends, just as you say.

Alright everyone, we have got to get this thread back up and running, with all the new cakes coming out and all. Lets all share whats happening in the pu world.

2009 Mengku "Jade Dew" YSLLC

After discounts I paid $7 per cake, an excellent deal for a cake. It is a 400g. cake, the first thing I noticed is how nice the leaves are, this cake has some good material, alot of buds, furry leaves, just nice stuff. The flavor is quite interesting, it starts of very "hayish" tasting, It is a very potent tea indeed, quite astringent. The liquor is a very nice deep yellow. The hay flavor dissipated in latter infusions and became more enjoyable. There was talk on here a few months back about this cake not looking good because it had very red leaves, this is not the case, I do not find this in the dry or wet leaves. Would I pay $15 for this cake? No, but for $7 per cake it really is a bargain, just as a nice tea to just sit back with at very little expense. I would not recommend buying large quantities of the stuff, rather get a few cakes, try it out, for the price, you really cant loose.

I think I will be starting out the day tomorrow with some 7542. I will post my thoughts.

I am following Tim's lead in the Nannuo granny face powder thread and drinking some of my precious free sample of Nada's 2008 Nannuo "Cha Chan Yi Wei." Sweet, light, wish I had picked up a bing last year at $17 before they sold out! Tim says it smells like peonies.

Every time I walked into my pu closet I was being enticed by the Xiaguan FT8603-9. It has an incredibly potent aroma. So I decided to grab one of the cakes today, and give it a run. Upon opening the wrapper you get hit by the smell, very smokey with some sweetness to it, I personally love it. The leaves are fairly nice, very similar to a 7542 blend from Dayi. The brew is quite dark orange/amber. It is a very powerful tea, defiantly smokey so dont get this if smokey tea arnt your thing, I love em so this cake is great for me. Overall I just love everything about this cake from the attractive price to the quality, just very good. I believe they should be very good for aging and they have quite a punch. I will defiantly be buying more of these at some point. Highly recommended.

Not a fancy photo by any means, sorry about that distorted line running across the picture. I took it with my cell phone.It's a 2006 King of Puerh cake. It's composed of wild arbor leaves from Xishuangbanna, or so the vendor says.

A brief description: this brew contains no bitterness. I used a whopping 5 grams for my little 120 ml gaiwan. It has a hint of smoke, mostly detectable in the first brew. Incredibly smooth, it sort of tastes like yerba mate, but without the astringency. It also has a hint of tobacco along with a farmhouse aroma/flavor that reminds me of sweet hay (no cow-pies thankfully).

I drank cups of this tea while reading Faust by Johanne van Goethe. I feel like it helped me to compose myself a bit to do some scholarly reading.

Right off the bat….a bit of smoke and bacon. Then wood, hay and a hint of camphor. Fairly complex. Initially the brewed leaves hit hard with the scent of bacon. Somewhat strange but somehow satisfying. Leaning more to the earthy side which is nice for a change. Flavors have an aged feel about them for an 07. Coats the mouth with flavors that linger long after liquor is swallowed. Nice large leaves that are mostly intact…they are dark as well making me wonder if they are fall leaves. After later brews the leaves had a complex and magnificently sweet smell to them. For the $13 I paid including shipping…an obscene bargain. One of the best shengs I have had.[/img]

Hi, After reading your review I did a search on eBay and found them for $10.00, I was saving 3 dollars every time I bought one!I decided to buy 7 and get one free.

This is my first post....so a little about myself. I'm Malaysian and have been drinking tea for about 7yrs now. Pu er is relatively new to me though....only about a year or so.

My Pu of the day is a sheng (my first sheng)!! And that's about all i know about this tea....except that the nei fei has the zhongcha print. The friend who most generously donated this lovely little chunk to me has perhaps had one too many joints as he himself can't recall what it is. Maybe some of you could tell me a little more about it. I suspect it's at least a little aged judging from the dark brown colour......and don't think I'd be able to tell from appearance alone whether it was a shu or sheng.

Taste : Floral, sweet, slight bitterness but not of the unpleasant variety. It almost tastes a bit like sarsi (weird)

Very strong tea, i've gone 15 infusions. Lovely mild floral huigan that goes on for quite some time at the back of throat. The first time i drank this my lips went slightly numb.

What i really like about this tea is the chaqi. It's energetic, bright and positive.